March 28, 2024

‘What’s your vision for 2020?’

Students encouraged to create civics-related documentaries; C-SPAN’S 16th annual StudentCam video competition

DES MOINES – Mediacom and C-SPAN announce the start of this year's annual student documentary competition and encourage middle school and high school students to participate in the video documentary competition known as "StudentCam." Students are asked to create a short video documentary and submit it online between Nov. 1, 2019, and Jan. 20, 2020.

This year marks the 16th annual StudentCam competition, and the new topic for 2020 submissions is “What’s Your Vision in 2020?” As students think critically about that question, they will explore an issue that they most want presidential candidates to address during the campaign and, also analyze the current or historical significance of their chosen issue and include differing points of view. Participants present their views by creating a short video documentary, five to six minutes in length. Students can work in teams or individually to create their videos.

Cash prizes of up to $100,000 in total will be awarded to winning documentaries. Winners will be announced in March 2020 and the top-rated videos will be televised on C-SPAN in April 2020. In recent years, Iowa students from Aplington-Parkersburg, Cedar Falls High Schools, Dallas Center-Grimes High School and Urbandale created StudentCam documentaries that earned national recognition. Complete competition details and entry forms are available on the C-SPAN StudentCam website http://www.studentcam.org.

C-SPAN is a public service created and supported by the American cable television industry, including Mediacom. The public affairs networks operate commercial-free without government tax dollars, and Mediacom provides its video subscribers with access to all three C-SPAN networks.